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From Thomas Henry Huxley [before 30 January 1868]1

My dear Darwin

I wish to offer our hearty congratulations upon your son’s great success at Cambridge2

Is he my heraldic young friend of seven or eight years ago?3 It must be amazingly jolly to have a son come out in this style— And I must make my boys give their progenitors some such pleasure—; though they are not likely to go to either University4

The two volumes of the new book have just reached me5

My best thanks for them; and if you can only send me a little time for reading them within the next three months, you will heighten the obligation twenty-fold— I wish I had either two heads or a body that needed no rest—!

Huxley refers to the universities at Oxford and Cambridge. Huxley had two sons, Leonard and Henry. Leonard won a scholarship to Oxford, and was a student at Balliol College from 1879 (Clark 1968, p. 99).

Huxley refers to Henrietta Anne Huxley; their other children (see n. 4, above), were Jessie, Marian, Nettie, Rachel, and Ethel. Two of the Huxley children had fallen ill with scarlet fever in November 1867 (see Correspondence vol. 15, letter from J. D. Hooker, 19 November 1867 and n. 15).

Summary

Congratulations on George’s attaining Second Wrangler.

Variation has just arrived. Wishes he had two heads or a body that needed no rest.